


we got the sunshine

by haipollai



Series: burning lights [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Elemental Magic, Gaining magic, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 11:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10898619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: “Be careful,” Alex’s father says, leaning in close as they watch the tape of the young Swedish center. “That one isn’t like us, his eyes see too much.”“Be careful,” Alex’s mother says, cupping his face as he steps down from the stage so management can take their photos with Backstrom. His mother keeps Alex from looking. “He doesn’t bleed like us, Sasha. Please. Be careful.”There’s no time for an explanation, Ted and George and Backstrom are leaving the stage and the Ovechkins are swept along with them.





	we got the sunshine

“Be careful,” Alex’s father says, leaning in close as they watch the tape of the young Swedish center. “That one isn’t like us, his eyes see too much.”

“Be careful,” Alex’s mother says, cupping his face as he steps down from the stage so management can take their photos with Backstrom. His mother keeps Alex from looking. “He doesn’t bleed like us, Sasha. Please. Be careful.”

There’s no time for an explanation, Ted and George and Backstrom are leaving the stage and the Ovechkins are swept along with them.

-

A year passes before they get to play together. A year for Alex to see nothing but occasional tapes passed along by Ted or George. He watches them, but doesn’t think much more of the Swede. He needs to focus on this season first.

He’s scoring, he’s scoring a lot but in the end it doesn’t matter. He swallows back any comments about the team around him but the feeling that he deserves better lingers and festers. It feels like it’s eating a hole in his stomach by the end of the season. The Calder feels like a balm, over what should have been a better season.

His mother must see something in his eyes because she pulls him aside after the ceremony. His mother’s eyes have always caught the light like flecks in marble, but now they’re hard like granite. “You are not trapped to the soil Alexander. Stop acting like it.”

“But-”

She dismisses his protest with a flick of her wrist but her eyes never leave him. “Don’t play the fool with me. You did something miraculous and now you smile like wet clay.”

Alex makes a face at her. “Maybe I am. Maybe that’s the secret.”

She smacks the side of his head. “We are Russian. Do not be trapped.” She shoves him back towards the cameras and the celebrations and his trophy, waiting for him to smile and pose. Alex has always played with abandon and joy but with his feet in shoes on solid ground, he’s always found it harder. It’s only on ice, where he’s felt like he could fly.

He holds up the Calder for the cameras, kisses it and poses and he wishes for summer to end.

-

He remembers his mother’s words as Nicklas Backstrom sits next to him on the bench, a trainer tending to the split lip given to him by a high stick. His blood is bright red against his pale skin. No different from anyone else. Except somehow so much more. Nicky has his eyes squeezed shut as the trainer pokes at him. 

He relaxes once the trainer glues him together and tells him he's good to go. Somehow Nicky always looks like the light is shifting around him even in an arena with unchanging blinding lights shining down on them. 

It's like Nicky has his own sunlight, casting shadows or making him glow. It's a dangerous line of thinking for a Russian. They are not bound to anything, and should only look at those who are with disgust. He doesn't know much about the elements save for an NHL training session and the hard stone of his mother's eyes. He doesn't know what to think when Nicky catches his gaze and his brows furrow in askance. 

Alex drags his eyes away and focuses back on the game.

-

They know eventually they’ll be on a line together, it seems inevitable. There’s no rush to it though. Alex gets to know Nicky off the ice but he has Semin and Nicky and Greenie imprint on each other like confused baby ducklings. 

When it does happen, it’s so sudden there’s no time to really be prepared. There’s no way Alex could have known it would feel like flying straight into the sun. 

He grabs Nicky after the goal to hug him. And goals keep coming. Alex starts to love the press of Nicky’s body as much as the adrenaline rush of a goal. 

-

He's drunk. He knows he's drunk, he can feel it in his limbs. It doesn't matter though because the only one with him is Nicky and he's matched Alex almost shot for shot which means he has to be drunker. For all his good qualities, Nicky is still not Russian. 

He must say it out loud because Nicky elbows him in the ribs. Alex wraps himself around him to prevent anymore unfair jabs. 

They’ve ended up together in one bed, a tangle of limbs. This feels like it matters but Alex can't sort out his thoughts enough to figure out how. Nicky is warm in a gentle way. Like the sun peaking through clouds. Alex tucks himself in closer. 

Nicky flicks at his ear. “You're heavy.” 

“So what.”

“You're like a… a… fuck I don't know the word,” Nicky huffs and tries to shove at him but he's uncoordinated and slow and Alex easily catches his wrist and pins it to the bed. 

“What?”

“The sea creature with all the wiggly arms.” Nicky grumbles. He wiggles his own fingers as well. 

“An octopus, Nicky?” Alex laughs. 

Nicky tries to knee him in the side and Alex has to twist to dodge which throws off his balance. He doesn't let go of Nicky though and they end up rolling together and ending up pressed impossibly close. 

Nicky sucks in a breath and Alex can feel it. A warning echoes in his head but he doesn't remember what it is. “Alex,” he murmurs. Or maybe he's screaming it, Alex can't seem to focus on anything.

Suddenly Nicky’s eyes widen and he scrambles back in a flurry of limbs. 

“I'm sorry,” he says, over and over. His cheeks are red and he won't look Alex in the eye but Alex can still feel how warm he is. He doesn't think they're touching anymore but his limbs don't feel entirely connected to him so he can't tell for sure. It hurts strangely, to think Nicky is out of reach. 

He doesn't know if it's the alcohol making him dumb or brave but he sits up, staying in Nicky’s space. He feels more aware than a second ago but he doesn't want to look away from Nicky’s wide eyes and red cheeks and the way strands of hair seem to almost float around his head. “For what?” Alex pushes. 

“You…but- do you?” His brow furrows in the way Alex has come to recognize as a sign Nicky is trying to be mature and rational. Alex touches his finger to that spot, wanting the wrinkles to go away. 

He looks so confused that Alex doesn't see the harm in leaning forward and kissing him. Nicky sighs, barely hesitating before sinking into Alex. 

-

“He is my boy you know,” 

Nicky refuses to believe he jumped in surprise, but his heart is definitely pounding in his chest. Tatyana Ovechkina is staring at him, hands clasped behind her back like a coach or school teacher. Nicky isn’t entirely sure what she’s referring to so just nods quickly.

“My Sasha, he is Russian,” she continues, clearly not caring about a response. “He know only fairy stories of people like you.” Nicky bites his tongue before he blurts out a dumb question. There are stories in Sweden of course, about Soviet Russia about what the government did. Nicky had never paid much attention because it all seemed too macabre to be real, but now that’s what Tatyana is telling him.

“Ma’am,” he starts when he finally trusts his mouth again but her eyes narrow slightly and he shuts up.

“You seem a good person Nicklas, I want to trust you to care for him well.” She reaches up and pats his cheek. “Sound ok, yes?”

“Ja- yes. Of course,” he says quickly.

She smiles, seemingly satisfied. As she walks away and leaves him alone again, he realizes he didn’t even have a chance to point out he didn’t even know he and Alex were dating.

The kissing was one thing and they hadn't gone past that. Nicky has made sure to shove all his wants for whatever they are down as deep as possible so he doesn't do something to Alex. He still hasn't figured out how to ask Alex what he wants. 

He runs out of time when their season comes to an end. 

-

_You should go see him._ Mikhail had teased. 

_Stop moping_ his father had said more bluntly.

And somehow it ends with Alex on a flight to Stockholm a month before he has to return to D.C. for training camp. His stuff from home is all set to be shipped to the States, so he only needs to take a duffel.

Nicky’s waiting for him in the airport, cap pulled low over his eyes but his hair sticking out from underneath in messy curls. He grins when he sees Alex, and Alex feels like his own steps are lighter at the sight.

When he’s closer and can see more than shadows on Nicky’s face, he can see the hint of a sunburn across his nose and freckles over his cheeks. “You enjoy summer, Backy?” They’d spoken regularly, mostly about nothing. It had all been remarkably easy with Nicky, but then that’s how everything seemed to go. He gently runs his finger over the curve of Nicky’s cheek, tracing the smudge where the freckles are darkest. 

Nicky’s cheeks turn pink and he pulls away but a second too slow. Alex grins, feeling like he's won something. “We're in public Alex,” he grumbles, but his eyes are dancing. 

“You saying not dramatic enough? You want a dip kiss?”

Nicky laughs and punches his shoulder. Alex catches his arm and pulls him in for a hug. He keeps his arm there over Nicky’s shoulder as Nicky leads him to his car. 

“It's a bit of a drive,” Nicky says sheepishly as if Alex didn't know that. He rolls his eyes and rests his hand on Nicky’s, giving it a quick squeeze. Nicky sucks in a breath. Everything seems to pause in the car, Alex feels like he forgot how to breathe but when he does the air smells like ozone. Then Nicky breathes out and the world jumps forward. “I'm going to kick you out of this car if you act like an idiot.”

Alex laughs and leans his seat further back but he doesn't move his hand and Nicky doesn't knock him away as he puts the car into gear. 

He drifts as Nicky drives, he's not tired but the hum of the car’s engine and the warmth of Nicky’s hand under his lulls him to a light doze. He feels better than he has all summer. Hockey is coming soon and he gets this moment with Nicky, without any media wanting to question everything he's done. This somehow feels sacred. 

He turns his head to look at Nicky. It's not particularly sunny right then, but Nicky’s hair seems to catch every ray of light. 

That feeling of time being off, or on hold, is back. “Nicky,” he murmurs. Nicky only spares him a glance. 

“You should wake up Alex,” Nicky sighs. 

“Not sleeping.”

Nicky’s smile seems too tight. “Yes you are.”

-

Nicky’s parents are on vacation, so the house in Gavle is all theirs. Nicky shows him up to the guest room and leaves him there to get settled in. It takes Alex about an hour to realize it’s Nicky’s way of avoiding him. He doesn’t know the house at all and no idea what spaces Nicky considers his own. Something tells him to look outside first and there he is.

There are clouds moving across the sky, occasionally blocking the sun, casting everything in sudden shadow before moving on just as quickly. Alex stands in the door and watches him, stretched out on a lawn chair with his eyes closed. He seems to be glowing but somehow not, as if he’s absorbing the sunlight. Alex blinks but the feeling doesn’t go away.

He’s reminded of the stone in his mother’s eyes.

He steps outside and Nicky shifts, stretching like a cat. The sense of lazy calm lasts a second before Nicky remembers it’s Alex and he sits up quickly. “Hey.” He shoves his hair back behind his ears which only exposes his cheekbones to the sun, the hollows catching shadows making everything about Nicky’s face seem somehow more.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake.” He sits down carefully on another lawn chair facing him. Everything feels off kilter.

Clouds block the sun and this time stay there. Waiting.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Nicky says softly.

It makes Alex give a small smile at the echo of the conversation in the car. “You sure?”

Nicky’s lips curl up at the corners, recognizing it too. “Yes.”

“Why you say yes?” Alex asks, not meaning to but once the words are out he knows they’re exactly what he wants to know. “When I ask to visit, why you say yes?” He elaborates just in case Nicky is feeling like playing dumb.

“I was…” He tilts his head back and somehow his hair seems to catch sunlight despite the lingering clouds. “The sun was out. It felt right.”

“Nicky,” Alex breathes. 

“Your mom warned me,” Nicky continues, still not looking at him. “He’s Russian, she said. We hear horror stories of Russia here when we’re little. Be bad and you’ll be sent to Russia, they’ll tear the life from your bones.” Alex’s breathing hitches. There are stories, but they’ve taken on the air of legend, half truth half propaganda. How Russians before the communism, while under the excess of the tsar had something more, but it made them weak, selfish.

“They tell us...made us weak. Slave to…” He trails off, not sure what the word is in any language. “Say we’re better now, stronger, nothing able to hold us back.”

Nicky is looking at him now. “You don’t know...anything?” 

Alex shakes his head, but it’s not the whole truth. He’s seen stone in his mother and if he thinks about it the iron that held Sergei’s spine straight. He didn’t know what any of it meant though, he still doesn’t. “I know not all gone like people want.”

“It’s not in you,” Nicky says like a doctor delivering the worst news.

It makes Alex flinch. “I’m not missing anything,” he snaps.

Nicky’s eyes grow wide and he gives a hard shake of his head, blond hair fanning out around him. The clouds have started moving again but everything feels slow. “I didn’t mean- No, you’re not Alex.” He drops his head, letting his hair hide him and Alex has to fist his hands on the arms of the chair before he does something stupid and impulsive. “Not having doesn’t mean missing,” Nicky says to his feet.

“So what?”

“So...when there’s nothing to counter…” He rubs his hands over his face. Alex wishes he spoke Swedish or Nicky spoke Russian or either of them spoke English better. “There has to be balance. So it would - I would create balance. If we keep going.”

“Balance,” Alex says slowly, feeling the word out.

Nicky nods. “If this between us- I just thought you should know. Before it’s too late.”

“Nicky,” he huffs. “That doesn’t mean anything. Everyone already tell us what a good balance we are, you all thinking deep and me all dumb choices. Tell me plain.”

It gets Nicky to look up, rising to the challenge in Alex’s words. He’s annoyed but Alex doesn’t know at which part of what he said. He doesn’t stop to ask, all he wanted was Nicky to look at him. “I have sunlight, like this with clouds and in and out. Balance of a sun is always the moon.”

Alex blinks, and again. The clouds seem to be moving faster but he thinks he’s imagining that, or maybe that’s just how they’re reflecting in Nicky’s eyes. They stare at each other for a long time until Alex’s stomach growls. Nicky rolls his eyes, the annoyance fading into a bemused smirk.

“Come on, your mom can probably feel I’m not being a good host.”

-

Sitting with Nicky always feels right somehow. Even when they’re both angry at each other and as likely to kill each other as share a smile. They both understand those feelings pass, they both get how they fit even if they can’t figure out where the edges might be. Like twisting a puzzle piece around in your fingers until it finally locks in place.

“What it mean? You make balance?” He asks after they’ve finished a haphazard lunch of sandwiches and leftover chicken Nicky’s mother had left for them.

Nicky frowns and tears at his extra bread. “Don’t know if I can explain. You have to let it in, and you get…” He angrily eats the piece of bread he’s mauled. “I know it finds spaces to fit and I know we end up connected. Not like thoughts but just…”

“Feeling each other.”

Nicky nods. “Yes. Like that.” Alex had seen it with his parents, a vague sense where the other was, or his father knowing his mother’s team had won without watching. He suspects whatever might happen with Nicky would be much more. Maybe it’s finally time to ask them about this, about the elements they carry in their own bones. Nicky suddenly gets up and starts clearing away their plates. “I’m going to the store to get dinner. Text me what you want.”

He leaves Alex alone with his thoughts, as if reading his thoughts. It feels like they don’t need much more to bind themselves together.

He puts together his shopping list for Nicky first and then heads up to his room to call his parents.

-

It’s not immediate, takes years really for Alex to really feel moonlight inside him. At first it was all Nicky, Nicky glowing with warmth. Seeing the shadows in Nicky’s eyes become second nature. He doesn’t think much of himself until a reporter shoves a mic into his face after a bad game.

“Is having moonlight in you affecting your play?”

Alex stares at him. “What.”

The reporter doesn’t back down. “Moonlight,” he says it slower as if that’s what Alex didn’t understand.

“Why would it affect me? Just a bad game. We all get bad games.” He feels Nicky’s attention like a prickling on the back of his neck. Alex doesn’t know how his eyes look hard and cold, like a full moon in winter until he sees the video later. He doesn’t realize the way he seems to draw the air in the room towards himself until Greenie teases him about taking people's breath away the next morning at practice.

He does know that the reporter starts to look uncomfortable and ends the line of questioning.

-

Nicky finds the first strands of grey while they’re in bed. He says he first noticed them while Alex was blowing him and didn’t think it was worth interrupting. He points them out later when they’re both sated and tangled together.

“It’s showing,” Nicky murmurs, his fingers curling the strands together.

“What is?” He asks into Nicky’s shoulder, feeling too good to move.

“The moon.”

Pressed so close, Alex can feel how even Nicky is breathing. Not in the natural way of sleep, but someone who is carefully measuring each breath to feign calm. Alex can feel Nicky worrying at the back of his mind anyway. “Outside?” He asks, playing dumb.

It gets Nicky to sigh and flick his ear but his breathing steadies into a normal cadence. He pushes himself up onto his elbows to look down at him. Nicky’s glow fades at night, no matter how much he might lazily sunbathe during the day. Now though, he seems to be lit in silver. “Your hair,” Nicky says. “Going grey. Am I stressing you out?” He teases.

Alex laughs and leans down to kiss him, slow and thorough. It feels like more, like those weeks at Gavle away from everything and everyone. Back then everything felt intense as Alex learned what it meant to fall in love with the sun.


End file.
